Character Traits
FIRST GRADE Physical Traits of Characters Teacher materials: ' *Smartboard & projector *Presentation sheets *''Where the Wild Things Are by ''Maurice Sendak. '' *''Physical Traits'' Worksheet (The Complete Year in Reading and Writing, Grade 1) *Two Where the Wild Things Are stuffed animals '''Student materials: *''Physical Traits'' Worksheet *Pencils and crayons *Leveled independent reading books Teaching Point/Goal: ''What will students know and are able to do as a result of this lesson? Students will be able to identify and describe the physical appearance of characters in fiction books. Students will be able to illustrate a character from a book while labeling aspects of their physical appearance. '''Framing Questions: 'Questions that teacher and students will consider throughout the lesson.' ' *What are examples of physical traits? *How can we describe what a character looks like? *Do all characters look the same on the outside? Link To Standards: ''What competencies from the NYC/NYS Common Core Standards are addressed in this lesson? '' 1.RL.3 'Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. '''1.RL.7 '''Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events. Lesson Development '''Connection/Motivation: ' The students have just begun a unit on Character in reading workshop. This lesson will help student understand that characters in fiction books have physical traits. The teacher will start off the lesson by reading the Teaching Point for the students, which will be projected on the Smartboard. The teacher will then stand up and state, “Let’s say I was a character in book. How would you describe what I look like?” The teacher will continue standing pretending to model to the students as they shout out their responses. The teacher will begin writing these responses in a chart labeled Mr. Geist’s Physical Appearance. The teacher will explain that characters in fiction books look different on the outside. These characters have physical traits. We can think of these traits as what a character looks like or a character’s physical appearance. The teacher will explain that we will read the book Where the Wild Things Are and try to describe the physical appearances of some of the characters. 'Lesson Development: ' '''Model (I try): The teacher will then read a portion of the book Where the Wild Things Are. The teacher will project pages from the book onto the Smartboard and emphasis parts of the books (including pictures) that help describe the physical appearance of major characters. After reading the book, the teacher will say “Let’s look at the main character Max. How should we describe his physical appearance?” The teacher will then takeout a stuffed animal version of Max and hold it up for the students to see. Using the model, the teacher will describe what the character Max looks like, while pointing to specific traits. The teacher will explain that to help describe this character it can be helpful to draw a picture and to label the different physical traits. The teacher will draw a quick sketch of Max and label some of the traits just described. The teacher will ask students to share any other ways they’d describe the physical appearance of Max that he hadn’t already included. Active Involvement (We try): ' The teacher will now ask the students how they would describe a different character in the story, specifically one of the wild things. The teacher will now hold up another stuffed animal from the story. This time it is the main wild thing beast. Using this as a model, students will do a turn-and-talk and describe the wild thing’s physical appearance to their partner. After a couple minutes, students will reconvene as a whole group and then share their responses. The teacher will write down the students’ responses onto a new sheet of paper creating a class description of this character’s appearance and physical traits. '''Independent/partner activity/group activity (You try): ' The teacher will explain that they now will be reading independently from one of their fiction books. They will pick one character from the book to describe the physical appearance of. The teacher will show the Physical Traits graphic organizer on the Smartboard. Using this template, they will each draw a character from their fiction book and then label the different physical traits. Before sending them back to their tables, the teacher will have a student state back the activity instructions. Differentiation & Assessment '''Plan for Differentiated Instruction/Activity: '' '' During the independent activity, each student will be reading from a fiction book at their independent reading level. Students will also be able to select a character of their choice. High achieving students can choose more than one character. Students will be asked to label at least three different traits of their character’s appearance. High achieving students can label more traits. Students who learn better visually can focus more on the pictures in their books. They can describe what their characters looks like by focusing more on drawing a detailed illustration. Students whose strength is verbal-linguistic can focus more on the writing component of this task rather than the drawing. '' '' 'Share/Closure: ' Students will reconvene on the carpet to share their graphic organizers. Students will have to share the name of their characters and then describe the character’s physical appearance. The teacher will show a few student examples on the Smartboard. Lastly, the teacher will recap from physical traits are. Category:Literacy